


trials and tribulations

by katebishoop



Series: tumblr prompts [22]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Menstruation, Post-Season/Series 03, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 19:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7401661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katebishoop/pseuds/katebishoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was only a matter of time before their implants fail on the ground. Clarke isn't prepared, but surprisingly, Bellamy is.</p><p>[Winner of Best Canon Drabble in the 2016 Bellarke Fanfiction Awards]</p>
            </blockquote>





	trials and tribulations

**Author's Note:**

> **anonymous asked:** Hello you beautiful ff writer!! Maybe this isn't your style but I love your writing so i figured I'd try anyway. Basically my prompt is Clarke gets her period and terrible cramps for the first time in forever on the ground and Bellamy finds her and takes care of her even though she's super irritable. This would be a future AU where bellarke is real and peace is a thing. Fingers crossed you like it!
> 
> You sent this like two months ago, and I started writing it one month ago, but better late than never am i rite

When Clarke wakes up with a sharp pain in her gut and blood in her underwear, her first reaction is complete and utter panic.

They shut down all the nuclear reactors. The radiation shouldn’t be increasing, this shouldn’t be happening. They finally had peace no this couldn’t be happening they were done they were supposed to be done-

She’s hyperventilating on the bathroom floor when Bellamy finds her.

“Clarke?” His voice is still rough with sleep, but as soon as he gets his eyes open enough to register her he’s alert. “Clarke, what’s wrong?”

They’ve been through this many times before, both of them. But the amount of panic attacks either of them had decreased when they had found each other in a way they have had before. The amount went down even more once they shut down the last reactor and settled into peace away from the coalition. They were now few and far between, but when they did come back, they came back with a vengeance.

She tries to steady hear breathing, so she focuses on the details of him: his messy, tousled hair; the sleep sand in the corners of his eyes; the scar on his upper lip; the lines of his bare chest; the brown of his eyes; the warmth of his calloused hands on her shoulders. He grounds her, brings her back to herself. He always does.

Shakily, she unwraps her arms from around her waist, showing him her bloody hands. “We didn’t win. The effects of the radiation-” she stutters off, clenching her eyes tightly.

She feels Bellamy’s hands move to her thighs. He’s found the source of the bleeding.

“Clarke.” There’s no worry in his voice. Bellamy’s voice is just soft, and comforting, and a bit relieved, which isn’t what she had expected at all. “We did win – I don’t think this is radiation.” Bellamy cups her jaw, turning her head up so that she’ll look at him. “I think… I think you got your period.”

My what-

“No,” Clarke blurts out, in confusion. “I don’t get periods. I have the implant, it doesn’t dissolve for-”

Five years.

She got it when she fourteen. She’s nineteen now.

“Oh.” Clarke blinks at Bellamy, then down at her lap. She’s perfectly calm now, though she feels a little silly. Of course the conclusion she would jump to was her worst nightmare, instead of a normal bodily function she hadn’t had in years. But Bellamy- “Wait, how did you know?”

Bellamy rubs the back of his neck. “Octavia didn’t have implant until she was sent to the Skybox, so I’m familiar.” His face falls a little, like it always does at the mention of his absent sister. He shakes his head. “We should get you cleaned up and take you to your mother, just to make sure everything is alright.”

“Yeah,” Clarke nods, still a little stunned by it all. “Yeah, okay.”

Her mom confirms Bellamy’s theory: her implant has expired and dissolved, and she’s on her period.

Her mother also tells her that they don’t have any more implants, or any other methods of birth control really, and recommends that unless Clarke wants to get pregnant, she and Bellamy should-

And then she stopped listening, because her mother talking about her sex life is not something she ever, ever needs.

Her mother offers some pain medication for the cramps, but Clarke denies them. There are actual injuries that could use it. Besides, she’s going to have to get used to it, anyway.

Both of their heads turn at the sound of a knock on the door frame.

It’s Bellamy, but if it was anyone else she’d probably be embarrassed. She’s sitting up on the bed, sitting pants less in a bed pan with a blanket covering her.

“How’re you doing?” He comes over to her and rubs his hand between her shoulder blades.

Clarke sighs and leans into him. “You were right.”

Bellamy snorts. “The one time you say it, I wish you hadn’t.”

Clarke chuckles at that, but an unfamiliar sensation sends a shiver down her spine.

Her mother looks at her with sympathy. “Next time Nyko comes through, we can ask him about birth control measures.” Clarke feels Bellamy tense beside her – the only person more uncomfortable with her mother’s comments. “But also about sanitation. We relied on the implants primarily, girls were on their period so infrequently that we never had a day-to-day solut-”

“Wait a second.” Bellamy digs into his pocket. “Almost forgot about this.”

He pulls out and unfolds a collection of cloth. It’s about as long as his hand, in an oval shape, with half circle pieces sticking out from each side, a small hole in one and a button sewed onto the other.

“Cloth pad,” Bellamy says, handing it to her. “I can make a better one, but I wanted to get this one done quickly so you’d just have _something_ at the very least.”

Clarke examines it. Despite Bellamy’s claim that it was quickly done, the craftsman ship isn’t lacking. The stitching along the edges is immaculate. She traces her fingers along the sewn looped edges; she can picture Bellamy in their cabin, hunched over and determined but delicate all the same.

Sometimes she knows Bellamy better than she knows herself, but even then, he always finds a way to surprise her. The swell of affection she feels for him gets improbably bigger.

“Thank you,” Clarke says, and pulls his arm down so that she can kiss him gently on the lips.

His cheeks are flushed when she pulls back, and gives her a sheepish smile. She doesn’t care that her mother is standing right there, but he does.

“I’m going to go wash these before they stain.” He holds up her dirty clothes that were on the table next to her. “Then I’ll get started on more of those.” He points to the pad in her hands.

He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead, and whispers _I love you_ against her skin.

It makes her forget her pain, her discomfort for a moment, until he’s out the door and another cramp has her keeling over.

Within the next three months, about eighty percent of implants have failed. The other twenty percent are expected to fail within the next year.

Nyko introduced them to this herb that prevents pregnancy, but there’s still a quite a few recently pregnant women walking around.

Clarke is thankfully not one of them.

But it’s days like this, when she’s stuck in the bed from the pain of her cramps, that she wonders if pregnancy would be better.

But she’s not ready for that – not yet.

Clarke’s head is under the covers, but she can still hear the tell tale sound of Bellamy’s boots against the hardwood floor of their cabin. She feels his weight as he sits on the edge of the bed, feels his fingers brushing over her hair that’s sticking out from the covers.

“How are you feeling?”

Clarke groans and throws the blanket back. “How do you think?”

She takes Bellamy in: he’s sweaty, his curls a bit damp and sticking to his forehead. He’d been at training, and normally she’d watch from the medbay window and ogle, but…

He sets a stack of cloth pads on the bedside table. He had perfected the design quickly, and when Nyko came by he introduced them to another material that they now used. Bellamy had two jobs now: guard and seamstress.

And she couldn’t be more proud.

And also annoyed, because he keeps  _hovering_.

And also completely and utterly in love, because it was so endearing, and he was so sweet, and kind, and caring, and she justs want everything for him-

He also sends her into overdrive during this time. 

"Nyko just got in today." As Bellamy says this, he puts a hand on her shoulder to keep her in bed, knowing that she'll want to see him. _Tomorrow_ , the gesture says. "He gave me some advice on how to deal with the cramps, since you refuse pain medication."

 

Clarke lets out a huff. Other people need that - oh, she'll save the speech. He knows it by heart as much as she; they are both martyrs in that sense.

"Oh yeah?" 

"Yeah." Bellamy's voice drops, going to that raspy level that gets her blood going. He places his hand down on her thigh - _high_ up on her thigh. He leans down close, his lips grazing her neck, his breath hot on her skin, warming her body. "There's a natural way for you to feel better."

Oh.

 _Oh_.

She can't believe this - she's been so horny, but so distracted that she couldn't even think of _that_.

Bellamy's mouth latches onto her neck, and Clarke gasps in pleasure. She can already feel the tension easing in her gut.

Maybe his hovering wasn't so bad, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm flying back to the States on Friday, which means my haitus will soon be over and I can write the really long list of AUs and prompts that I made...
> 
> prompts are open over on [tumblr](http://bellakeyblake.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
